[edit]
A kauri driving dam on Great Barrier Island, 1967. Logging was one of the early industries on the island, and this dam provided enough water to drive kauri logs 16 km (10 mi) to the sea.
Great Barrier Island (Aotea) is the ancestral land of Ngāti Rehua Ngātiwai ki Aotea who are the mana whenua (territorial land rights holders) of Aotea. Ngāti Rehua have occupied Aotea since the 17th century after conquering Aotea from people of Ngāti Manaia and Kawerau descent. In the mid-19th century during the early Colonial era of New Zealand, extensive private and crown land purchases meant only two areas of the Hauraki Gulf remained in Māori ownership: Te Huruhi (Surfdale) on Waiheke Island (2100 acres) on Waiheke and a 3,510 acre parcel of land at Katherine Bay on Great Barrier Island.
Local industries[edit]
Mining[edit]
Early European interest followed discovery of copper in the remote north, where New Zealand's earliest mines were established at Miners Head in 1842. Traces of these mines remain, largely accessible only by boat. Later, gold and silver were found in the Okupu / Whangaparapara area in the 1890s, and the remains of a stamping battery on the Whangaparapara Road are a remainder of this time. The sound of the battery working was reputedly audible from the Coromandel Peninsula, 20 km away.
In early 2010, a government proposal to remove 705 ha of land on the Te Ahumatā Plateau (called "White Cliffs" by the locals) from Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act, which gives protection from the mining of public land, was widely criticised. Concerns were that mining for the suspected $4.3 billion in mineral worth in the area would damage both the conservation land as well as the island's tourism economy. Locals were split on the project, some hoping for new jobs. If restarted, mining at White Cliffs would occur in the same area it originally proliferated on Great Barrier. The area's regenerating bushland still holds numerous semi-collapsed or open mining shafts where silver and gold had been mined.
Kauri logging[edit]
The sawmill at Whangaparapara, c. 1910
The kauri logging industry was profitable in early European days and up to the mid-20th century. Forests were well inland, with no easy way to get the logs to the sea or to sawmills. Kauri logs were dragged to a convenient stream bed with steep sides and a driving dam was constructed of wood, with a lifting gate near the bottom large enough for the logs to pass through. When the dam had filled, which might take up to a year, the gate was opened and the logs above the dam were pushed out through the hole and swept down to the sea. The logging industry cut down large amounts of old growth, and most of the current growth is younger native forest (around 150,000 kauri seedlings were planted by the New Zealand Forest Service in the 1970s and 1980s) as well as some remaining kauri in the far north of the island. Much of the island is covered with regenerating bush dominated by kanuka and kauri.
Other industries[edit]
Great Barrier Island was the site of New Zealand's last whaling station, at Whangaparapara, which opened in 1956, over a century after the whaling industry peaked in New Zealand, and closed due to depletion of whaling stocks and increasing protection of whales by 1962.
Another small-scale industry was kauri gum digging, while dairy farming and sheep farming have tended to play a small role compared to the usual New Zealand practice. A fishing industry collapsed when international fish prices dropped. Islanders are generally occupied in tourism, farming or service-related industries when not working off-island.
Shipwrecks[edit]
Great Barrier Island pigeon post stamp
The remote north was the site of the sinking of the SS Wairarapa around midnight of 29 October 1894. This was one of New Zealand's worst shipwrecks, with about 140 lives lost, some of them buried in two beach grave sites in the far north. As a result, a Great Barrier Island pigeon post service was set up, the first message being flown on 14 May 1897. Special postage stamps were issued from October 1898 until 1908, when a new communications cable was laid to the mainland, which made the pigeon post redundant. Another major wreck lies in the far southeast, the SS Wiltshire.
Nature reserves[edit]
Over time, more and more of the island came under the stewardship of the Department of Conservation (DOC) or its predecessors. Partly this was land that had belonged to the Crown since the 1800s, while other parts were sold or donated like the more than 10% of the island (located in the northern bush area, with some of the largest remaining kauri forests) that was gifted to the Crown by farmer Max Burrill in 1984. DOC has created a large number of walking tracks through the island, some of which are also open for mountain biking. The Aotea Conservation Park has the only multi-day wilderness walk in the Auckland region, boasting two DOC huts and numerous campsites. The Park spreads over more than 12,000 hectares and offers multiple walking tracks for novice and experienced walkers.[citation needed]
The island is free of some of the more troublesome introduced pests that plague the native ecosystems of other parts of New Zealand. While it does have wild cats, feral pigs, black rats (R. rattus), Polynesian rats (R. exulans), mice and rabbits, there are no possums, mustelids (weasels, stoats or ferrets), hedgehogs, brown rats (R. norvegicus), deer or (since 2006) feral goats, thus being a relative haven for native bird and plant populations. Rare birds found on the island include brown teal ducks, black petrels and kākā.
Marae[edit]
Great Barrier Island has two marae affiliated with the local iwi of Ngāti Rehua and Ngātiwai: the Kawa Marae and its Rehua meeting house, and Motairehe Marae and its Whakaruruhau meeting house.
In October 2020, the Government committed $313,007 from the Provincial Growth Fund to upgrade Kawa Marae, creating 6 jobs.
Dark Sky Sanctuary[edit]
In 2017, Aotea / Great Barrier Island was accredited as a Dark Sky Sanctuary by the International Dark-Sky Association. This designation is given for sites in very remote locations to increase awareness of their dark sky characteristics and promote long term conservation. At the time, it was the third International Dark Sky Sanctuary to be designated, and the first island sanctuary.
